st: Generate a random double between -1 and 1

[Aaron Kirkman <ak5791@gmail.com>]

I have a situation where I need to generate random real numbers
between -1 and 1, and I'm wondering if there is a better way to
accomplish this. Right now, I use this:

clear
set obs 100000000
gen double eps = -1 + 2 * runiform()
summ eps

While this is probably acceptable, as the theoretical mean is 0, it's
problematic because multiplying 2 * runiform() excludes half the
possible values between -1 and 1. Is there a built-in way to do this
in a way that won't exclude values, or is this method sufficient? In
practice, I may generate as few as 30 random numbers and as many as
100,000,000 (if that's relevant).

Thank you,
Aaron Kirkman
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/